Robert Consalvo was rushing to a barbecue with supporters when he spotted graffiti on a bridge in Hyde Park.

“That was not there a day ago,” he said, quickly dialing the mayor’s hotline on his cellphone. “Graffiti you’ve got to call right in or else it breeds more graffiti.”

Consalvo’s keen eye reflected the kind of street-level concern that would have pleased another Italian-American from Hyde Park.

Like Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Consalvo, a district city councilor and mayoral candidate, is obsessed with sidewalks and crosswalks, revels in the minutiae of governing, and believes a city leader should be ubiquitous, boasting, “No one does the neighborhood block parties and ribbon cuttings better than me.”